Ultimate family feud: UFC president's mom files suit

Friday

Apr 19, 2013 at 2:00 AM

HAMPTON — June White, a Hampton resident and the mother of Ultimate Fighting Championship President Dana White, has filed a lawsuit to find out who has been smearing her name on the Internet ever since the release of a highly critical unauthorized biography she wrote about her son.

Nick B. Reid

HAMPTON — June White, a Hampton resident and the mother of Ultimate Fighting Championship President Dana White, has filed a lawsuit to find out who has been smearing her name on the Internet ever since the release of a highly critical unauthorized biography she wrote about her son.

June White said she is not on speaking terms with Dana White, a 43-year-old mogul with a net worth estimated at $150 million who oversees UFC, the largest mixed martial arts organization in the world.

White claims a troop of cyberbullies — with aliases such as Bootyduty3, Joe Stranger and The Real June White — have been posting "horrific" comments about her and her family for more than a year. She said she fears her son's company is behind the attacks.

"I hate to say it but it could be (UFC that's organizing the bad-mouthing), and that's one of the reasons I really want to find out," White said Wednesday. "If it is, that's pretty sad."

UFC media representatives did not respond to a request for comment.

White said she has a few reasons to believe it's one person or organization that has set out to smear her name.

First, she said her critics, who attack her on Twitter and write scathing, personal attacks on reviews of her book on Amazon.com, always resort to "certain words and phrases that everyone used," calling her "bitter, mentally ill, and a drunk." She said Amazon.com has removed many of the comments at her request, but her attackers persist regardless.

In another case, "immediately after" an interview with her was posted on the Web a couple months ago, the commenters set into their usual routine of posting "nasty" remarks, she said. But this time she knew the page administrator and had him check the commenters' email addresses.

"Someone had used four different names," she said. "It's all the same person."

White said she filed a lawsuit with the U.S. District Court in New Hampshire on April 12 because she was told that's the only way she can get a subpoena to find out who's behind the aliases. She's representing herself because attorneys quoted her "well over $100,000" to carry out her suit.

The lawsuit charges 21 anonymous commenters with defamation, libel and civil conspiracy. It says they've called White "psycho," "vindictive," "spiteful," and "pathetic," among many expletives, and suggested that she and her family participated in sexual deviancy and drug abuse and that she both abandoned and kidnapped her children.

Some of White's Twitter detractors follow only her, she said. White said the onslaught started after her book was released and hasn't let up in the past year and a half.

"I had no idea who was doing it or why they were doing it. Once it's up on the Web it's out there for millions to see," she said, adding, "Whoever is doing it has been able to hide their tracks pretty well."

She said she also has her fans on Twitter, who tell her not to worry about the "trolls," a name for those on the Internet who get their kicks by tormenting others. She said her supporters, like her, initially thought that Dana would intervene to put an end to the harassment.

"I had been waiting for Dana to tell whoever's doing this to knock it off and defend his mom and family, and they were all surprised he wasn't stepping up to the plate," she said.

White said it was her supporters who initially pointed out that it could be the UFC organizing the attacks.

"They told me that (UFC) has a department that's all they do is discredit people they're mad at for whatever reason," she said.

In her book, White said Dana has changed with the advent of his riches and there's "a small war between the person he is and the person I think he should try to be." She said she doesn't spare the details, including the ones that contradict Dana's professional persona, like that Dana went to a private school and lived in a nice house and that he failed to attend the funerals of his grandmother and cousin.

"He's telling stories to people that he was on the mean streets of Southie and Las Vegas," she said. "None of it was true. It really was upsetting to me." She said she worked "around the clock" to provide as best she could for Dana as a single mother.

She claimed the UFC has threatened to take away press credentials from sites that publicize her book and plight, and users on MMA Underground, an online discussion forum, have been banned for the same.

"He's like the kid when you're playing ball out in the street and he gets upset and takes the ball and goes home," she said.

Originally, she said, she wasn't going to go through with the lawsuit; she would have been satisfied just to know who was behind the aliases.

"Now I plan on following through," she said. "I don't care who it is. There have to be consequences for doing something like that over a year and a half."

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